YETI
Ranger, the AI Shopping Assistant
Role
Lead UX UI Designer
Problem
AI is becoming tablestakes for digital commerce sites and YETI needs to explore how to become a player in the AI-assisted shopping world.
Design Opportunity
Pilot a conceptual experience using Al tech to empower a new shopping experience on YETI.com.
TLDR
I was given a fairly broad brief to bring AI to the YETI website and create conceptual experiences that could leverage ChatGPT-like technology. I designed a YETI-branded, AI assistant and named it Ranger for the first round of concepts (this name ended up becoming trademarked as the official name of the AI agent for YETI). The pilot for this experience was a full-screen takeover chat window with Ranger. To begin, it asked what the user was shopping for and provided easy answer options as text bubbles below to boost engagement. Users also had the option to type in unique responses or selected one of the text bubbles in our Common Questions section to learn about that topic. The pilot launch 10/30/25 and brought in $2M in the first month, quadrupling the typical conversion rate of our site with an average of 12% CVR.
Focus on Engagement
Most AI agents let you begin the conversation but with Ranger, I decided for it to prompt every user with the same question to start — "I'm here to gear you up for your next adventure.What can I help you with?". The user can either select one of the many text bubbles of different pursuits (e.g. hunting or fishing) provided to begin their experience.
This makes it where the user is required to put very little effort into the conversation which keeps more people engaged for longer.
Cart Building
Ranger's main focus is to figure out what users are shopping for through a series of questions and recommend the right products based on their needs. With all that Ranger is set out to accomplish, the visuals and hierarchy of elements has to be excellent and not overwhelm our users.
Once users are satisfied with Ranger's recommendations, they switch to the cart building portion of the experience where they will be able to choose their color and size for each product they like and add them to their cart. For the pilot, the experience ends here and they are prompted to finish their shopping in the cart and checkout part of our regular site.